147 Options for Breaking into City M

Moving her thoughts away from what Ernie said, Aida continued to observe the border. She sat back down and tapped her chin in thought. This would be trickier than she had imagined.

Hypothetically, they could attempt to travel in stealthily with Rin, Light and Little White's help. All three had powerful concealing methods. Unfortunately, there were also some very obvious flaws that couldn't be addressed. Rin was unable to travel very far in the shadows when carrying other people with him even after levelling up. Light also had the issue of range as his illusions weren't strong enough to block the view of so many people at such a great distance.

Little White was able to shield everyone and even the RV, but the light camouflage only worked against human eyes. With the cameras in place, it would be challenging to travel across. The cameras, which ran at a much higher frame rate, would easily pick out the discrepancies in the videos.

Aida had also consulted Ace about hacking into the videos and then sneaking across. Unfortunately, the cameras were on a closed loop system inaccessible by the internet for added security. It would save the data on premise, and then send it up to the cloud later on. It seems the government was very cautious.

Since none of the three solutions were viable, they would have to find an alternative method to get in.

After monitoring the situation for a while longer, Aida grimly sat back into the RV and began discussing with the others. "What are our options?"

Lucifer spoke up first, "We could use me as bait again. They want me anyway, so if I give myself up they would be forced to open the gates."

Light immediately countered, "Not exactly. What if they wanted you somewhere else, not City M. You would potentially be flown off out of sight and we would have no way to save you."

Aida maintained her cold contenance as she waved her hand to dismiss the idea, "Next."

Xiao Ai spoke up, "Mama! Big Bro Rin could bring me past the security. Xiao Ai can hack their systems."

Everyone looked towards Xiao Ai when she volunteered herself, it wasn't their call to make. Aida immediately furrowed her eyebrows and glared at Xiao Ai, "We will talk about this later."

Xiao Ai shrunk back quietly. Aida was highly protective of her daughter. Xiao Ai had extremely low defenses and had no understanding on evasion or killing techniques. She was also incredibly unique and probably the only one of her kind in the world. There was no way to heal her, not even Yukio was able to heal her or increase her life force. If she were injured or caught by the government, it would be a catastrophe. The risk was far too high and Aida didn't want to even consider it an option unless it was the last resort. Xiao Ai also understood this as well which is why she quietly shrunk back.

"Next." Aida repeated.

Ace volunteered the next idea, "I could go and surrender myself too. I'm a human so maybe they will take me in."

Everyone rolled their eyes. Ace had absolutely no use or presence, why would the government ever bother to save someone like him.

This time, Aida didn't even respond. Instead, Light, who had been quiet up till now, finally spoke. "Since we have to do a frontal attack, our best bet is to find allies and work with them."

"Continue."

Getting confirmation, Light continued building out his idea, "Theoretically, we would not be the only ones on this side who want to break into City M. On the bases, they are most likely running low on supplies and discontent is surely rising. If we can identify who the leaders are and which ones are willing to act, we can work with them to create a distraction for others to break in."

Aida tapped her chin in thought, this was not a bad idea. There would certainly be casualties but Aida was fairly confident they could protect each other and survive mostly intact.

"Who do you suggest we go to?"

Light looked towards Ace who pulled out his laptop to show where the bases are, each of them were notated by a different color. Most of the bases had their own webpage and discussion threads that were locked behind layers of security, but those were jokes to Xiao Ai and Ace.

Light explained, "Ace and I have analyzed the various bases in the area and their conversation patterns on the discussion boards. Of the 5 bases that sit along the perimeter of this wall near City M, there are 3 groups within the bases that would potentially fit our needs."

"So many!" Lucifer exclaimed.

Ace nodded and responded this time, "We believe there are this many bases because all Variants from the nearby cities and towns had been in the process of evacuating when they got shut out by the government. After turning into Variants, they were still intent on getting back to civilization which is why they elected to set up their bases here. Many of them feel wronged for having their own government turn their backs on them."

Light chimed in, "This is why we believe we can find bases to ally with among the 5."

This made sense to everyone. The post-apocalyptic scene has not been an easy one to live in. They were just extremely fortunate to have Aida to guide them, which allowed their group to get through this slightly easier. Even then, they had multiple close calls where they almost died. Any average person would likely have died by the hands of Reapers despite having abilities.